Collaborations and Coalitions: Stanislaus National Forest Awarded Millions For Wildfire Resilience

The Social and Ecological Resilience Across the Landscape (SERAL) Project is the largest forest restoration project in California to date. As a partner on this ten-year 305,000-acre project, we work collaboratively to reduce fuel loads and steward wildfire-resilient forests. Recently, the Stanislaus National Forest received over $57 million in funding to carry on this critical restoration work.  

TRT’s current focus in this partnership centers around collaboratively restoring a 110,000-acre area of this landscape that extends from the Stanislaus Watershed into the Upper Tuolumne Watershed. This area is significant because it has not yet experienced a catastrophic mega-fire. Proactively, we turn to the restoration of healthy forests to create resilience across the whole watershed.

This sizeable piece of federal funding is co-managed by a coalition of partner organizations called Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions, of which TRT is a managing partner. A recent Union Democrat article shared, "The partnership between the Stanislaus National Forest and the Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions collaborative has been critical in recent successes in the forest, and it’s a model with few comparisons elsewhere in the U.S. ... The YSS group includes more than two dozen stakeholders in logging, environmental advocacy, and recreation, groups better known for their competing interests than their abilities to compromise."

Through our skillful facilitation and project management work, we increase critical Forest Service capacity and. Our methodology integrates high-tech and process-based restoration strategies rooted in collaboration, careful planning, and a shared sense of purpose. 

This funding directly ensures health and resilience in the Stanislaus National Forest and is managed by Tuolumne County with the support of Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions of which we are a leading member. As project managers, we are responsible for managing millions of dollars in project work that restores thousands of acres of forest into a sustainable watershed ecosystem. 

The ability to support our staff team while pursuing and maintaining new restoration programs and partnerships at this scale still relies on donations from our committed members. The Greater Yosemite Region relies on steady and consistent support, and this is where you come in. Member donations buoy us, keeping us rooted in our work. Together we can ensure landscape-scaled resilience in the face of an uncertain future.

Become a monthly member to fuel visionary and responsive restoration work.

Check out related articles at My Motherlode and the Union Democrat.